Friday, February 23, 2007

ISDC 2007

I've decided to attend ISDC 2007 in Dallas, May 23-28. This is the 26th International Space Development Conference, and the theme this year is "From Old Frontiers to New: Celebrating 50 Years of Spaceflight." The preliminary speaker list is amazing, starting with Buzz Aldrin, Steve Squyres, Rusty Schweickart, Robert Bigelow, Hugh Downs, Robert Zubrin, and many others (I've seen other names including Burt Rutan, Anousheh Ansari, and Kim Stanley Robinson, though perhaps these are not yet confirmed).

There are many presentation tracks and I've already submitted an abstract for the space education track with the title "Playing in Space: Interactive education with the Orbiter space flight simulator." I'm really looking forward to this conference - there's going to be a lot to learn, and a lot of people to meet, including many who are interested as I am in using space to help encourage young people to pursue careers in science and technology.

For an idea of the kind of people who attend ISDC and the kinds of things they are passionate about, check out this cool 40 minute video from ISDC 2005. It includes interviews with a number of attendees and some great clips from a speech by Burt Rutan, as well as excerpts from animations of future space systems by NASA and others.